


Flowers bloom at daylight

by amako



Series: ShikaSakuWeek 2019 [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Starvation, Language of Flowers, Light Angst, Nara Shikamaru Swears A Lot, Poetic, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, ShikaSaku Week 2019, Swearing, also both characters are ace-coded in my mind, also critical of the shinobi state and politics, but it's really mild, cause i'm soft and also fuck you, enjoy your brief trip into less-angsty mako writing, it's not going to last i promise you, just in case, just so you know, like written with some style choices, that's a change for me at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 10:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20776715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amako/pseuds/amako
Summary: The thing is, he didn't expect this to happen. But he didn't expect the last fifteen years to happen either and look where they are.He fucking hates his life.orShikamaru gets Hanahaki. He deals.





	Flowers bloom at daylight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ShikaSaku Week 2019  
Day 1: daylight so violent
> 
> i'm late. really late. but i actually have some stuff written that i prepared in advance i just need to finish them up and i can post them so don't worry too much and forgive me also please i love all of you  
revel in the shikasaku goodness while the week lasts  
a small note regarding the Child Abuse and Starvation tags. it's very mild, but just in case if you'd rather a description of the stuff, read the following. if you don't care/don't want spoilers, i hope you enjoy my story!  
a child is implied to want and convince themselves they want to marry a specific someone they don't love because they don't have money and are at risk of starving themselves, and already going hungry most days. if that bothers you, no problem! i've got about 50 other stories on my account about shikasaku that don't involve this and i'd love to have you read them instead if it's better for you.
> 
> love to mouseymightymarvellous, my incredible partner-in-crime and shoutout to theformerone for ranting with me about great stuff like shikasaku content

The thing is, he never would have thought his laziness could possibly show even in _this_. When it happens, his first reaction is to snort, then followed by a laugh surprised out of him by how stupid this is aaaand that's about the moment the tears start to come him.

Because his body is apparently so lazy it couldn't even deign to cough and he instead just _woke up_ one morning with an entire daffodil in his mouth.

He's fucking allergic to daffodil too, is the absolute irony. Gods he hates his life.

The thing is, he's never associated her with sakura blossoms. They come too quick and go too soon, they smell sweet and clean and they shower everyone in a never-ending flow of petals whenever you dare breathe in their direction. In short, they're everything she's not. She's reliable and resilient, strong and determined and more often than not, she smells of the sweat and dirt of the battlefield or the blood of the medics tents. She doesn't shower anyone in affection or attention or anything of the sort. Her affection is quiet and hardly won and her attention is precious when lives depend on her.

No, he's always associated her with daffodils, because of Ino. Because of their childhood, when the four of them used to run around together, before _boys_ and _girls_ became a thing, before lovers and liars were ever part of their lives, before they learned through experience that no one cares who you're fucking when you're all about to die anyway and he's been in more foursomes and moresomes than he likes to think about when he thought he was living his last day, which happened quite a lot (un)fortunately but that's not the topic here, right, because the topic is—

Before they learned that there was these things called clan separatism and hierarchy, that the three of them weren't supposed to talk to low-status, clan-less children who would become desk ninja anyway, before they learned that the only reason she ever went after the last Uchiha was because she had no parents and no support system and the desperation of knowing she would become a desk ninja with the pay to go with it made her night terrors stop featuring closet monsters and instead the days she went without lunch becoming a fixed feature of her life-to-be.

Before she ever went after the last Uchiha out of desperation and plain, simple hunger, and lost the only support system she ever had in the form of three clan heirs who didn't know the way out of the prejudice crawling out of their asses without even realising it.

Before all that, when the four of them used to run around together, Ino made her a flower crown out of daffodils and he talked about it to his father who gave him a scroll on kunoichi training which included, amongst other things that made his poor, four-year-old self want to crawl up into a closet and throw up, a section on flower meaning.

The thing is that he never associated her with sakura blossoms, and instead, she became in his mind the living embodiment of the small yellow flower.

Somehow he found it quite fitting, a few years later when he found out he was allergic to the stuff, that his body would have such an intense reaction to a flower he associated with the woman he's been in love with since reading a potentially-traumatizing scroll. Quite fitting, that he would be allergic to a flower meaning, amongst other thing, unrequited love, while associating it with a woman who stopped running after wealthy, upper-class boys for survival and instead ran after them to prove her own worth.

(though she didn't need to do that, ever, now did she, when she's always been worth the fucking world to him and he would gift her the moon if she hadn't punched its goddess right in the fucking face, wouldn't he, because she is worth so much to him he sees her in the shadows that shape his identity and he would formally present her to the forest spirits and the Shikami is she let herself be loved in the way she deserves because she is _worth so much—_)

The thing is, he woke up one day with a daffodil between his lips and laughed until he cried and sobbed until he choked on petals and

haven't we established the irony of the situation

she appears on his windowsill like the fucking goddess that she is and founds him in a pool of petals, flowers, tears and blood and doesn't even _blink_ before crouching next to him and saving his life.

The thing is, Hanahaki is a misunderstood, poorly researched, rarely cured disease that no one really bothered to look into because not only does it mostly happen to civilians (and we all know how the Konoha Administration feel about civilians) but the few shinobi who happen to suffer from it are strictly male and they are the expendable, replaceable bunch in the shinobi hierarchy and on top of being such a rare condition, the Konoha medical system is fucked up beyond recognition, has been ever since Tsunade fucked off the first time and even after she came back and revolutionized everything, to then fuck off again, leaving everything to—

The point is, it's rare and medics had more important shit to do, when there were medics at all in the Konoha hospital besides civilian healthcare providers, than find a cure for Hanahaki when there was, you know, _a literal war going on_.

So no one knows how it works, why it starts, why it only touches males, why flowers, why deadly, why it sometimes goes away without the love being requited, why it sometimes happens for platonic feelings, why

actually

yeah, why?

Why does Hanahaki take one look at Haruno Sakura-sensei, Titan Sakura, Godslayer, Sannin, Minister of Public and Shinobi Health in the newly _elected_ (and honestly he still can't believe they managed to pull this shit off) Konoha Government, and decides that attempting to save his life counts as requited love, is a very good question.

That he's obviously not going to ask, duh.

The thing is, he might not have grown out of being a lazy fuck, but he absolutely has grown out of being a coward. Hearing your father dying sometimes does that to a person.

Which is why, still lying on the floor in a pool of petals, flowers, tears and blood, his abs still aching from the laughter and his eyes still burning from the weeping and his lungs still aching from the disease and his mouth still tasting like flowers, he says:

"I'm in love with you."

which, granted, doesn't make for the greatest conversation opener but he might possibly maybe be going into shock so

"Yeah, I gathered," she replies faintly, looking ghostly and about to pass out.

"Sorry I scared you with the deadly, incurable illness. I had only been aware of it for two minutes when you came in." He looks at her face, mapping it quickly. She doesn't look very awake. "...why did you came in, by the way?"

Her voice is shaking, and still very faint. "So it turns out waking up coughing leaves from the Nara forest oaks makes for a powerful excuse to barge into one's window at five in the morning."

He'll concede her point.

wait what

“I love you, too?” she offers, looking terrified and unsure and about the most incredible person in existence.

The thing is, sometimes he only pretends to be lazy. Which is why he kisses her first.


End file.
